


When They Return

by Camellianswer



Category: Rockman X | Mega Man X
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Love, Comedy, Gen, Hints of X1, Maverick Hunters, POV First Person, Post-X3, References to Video Games, War, happiness, mavericks, reploids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-16 04:46:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19310899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Camellianswer/pseuds/Camellianswer
Summary: Musings of an unnamed Maverick Hunter on X and Zero.





	When They Return

 

In all the time I’ve worked here – and I’ve worked here for quite a while – nothing is quite as impactful as the return of X and Zero after a mission. I always manage to be there to greet them when they come. In the loading bay, or through the civilian entrance, or command room. A cargo elevator or the hall on the first level. I always end up wherever they are when they come, and neither one has questioned it yet.

It’s a little different every time. Sometimes it’s a bit anticlimactic – just the two of them walking in, no major damage or anything.

Sometimes X comes in dragging a battered Zero, and sometimes he’s dragged in himself.

He brought a little girl in with him once. A child orphaned by a skirmish. He took care of her for a month before her relatives were located.

Sometimes – more often, lately – X is quiet, subdued, even distressed. He puts on a brave face in public and smiles like the hero he thinks he always has to be, but then, behind these walls, he doesn’t have to try so hard. Zero’s there to support him, at least. A hand on his shoulder, or on his back, just saying that he’s there.

Sometimes X is talking up a storm, really way too fast the way he does when he’s got an idea, and Zero tries to listen.

Sometimes Zero comes in with an arm missing and a strange look on his face while X is fuming at him. Nobody knows, nobody asks.

Once, just once, X came back alone. It was…a dark day.

Today it’s a good day. A Maverick threat was suppressed quickly, with no casualties of humans or Reploids. X and Zero come in the way they rarely do – the way I like best to see ‘em.

Laughing.

Smeared head to toe in mud, elbowing each other like mischievous brothers, laughing helplessly over the events that I knew I’d hear about via rumors sometime later. Zero rubbing his knuckle on X’s head in mock reproof but unable to stop laughing. He’s complaining about his ponytail. And X laughs and shoves him a little, daubing another blotch of mud on Zero’s shoulder and throwing a sassy remark back at his friend.

With all they’ve done for us, I wish they could be this happy more often.

I can hope for tomorrow…


End file.
